How A Throwaway Line in A Classic West Wing Episode Foreshadows a Recent Troubling Trend By Progressives

 

Every year since it debuted in 2000 on Thanksgiving by family will always watch ‘Shibboleth’ a Thanksgiving episode of The West Wing.  There are by far superior episodes of the series – as a matter of fact, the Christmas episodes of the Aaron Sorkin era are among the creative highpoints of the show – but ‘Shibboleth’ is the one we have turned too well after the original series aired.

There are many reasons for this, most of them having to do with Allison Janney and how she finds out that the press secretary has the job of choosing which of two turkeys is more photogenic for the ceremony. As with almost everything Janney did during much of Sorkin’s tenure, she is utterly hysterical and serious at the same time and how it ends up playing out in the end will always make you laugh. The underlying storyline  - Chinese nationals who have smuggled themselves in a container ship and claim to be Christians fleeing persecution – is always relevant and profoundly moving, and the secondary plot involving Toby’s decision to put Josie McGarry – Leo’s sister – forward for a recess appointment has relevance to this day. I could and perhaps someday will write a much longer article about why this is one of the greatest episodes in TV history, but that, sadly, is not the purpose of this article. Rather I have chosen to write it because of a storyline that unfolds during this that is, in a sense, a throwaway but in reference to today’s politics and certain aspects of the left and the right, is always relevant.

A little background: Josh and Sam are about to have a meeting with representatives of the Christian coalition that are a Democratic ally at times. Sam keeps mentioning something about a threat to blow up a theater and Josh keeps saying don’t bring it up. Sam says: “It may slip out,” which we all know means it will at an inopportune time.

Among the ministers is a woman named Mary Marsh. We met her in the Pilot in which she got into a fight with Josh on TV and at an Oval Office meeting where Josh apologized, Mary didn’t accept it and made it an anti-Semitic slur. She has shown known  signed of modifying her attitude and makes another motion to threatening Josh. (Josh casually reminds her without saying so he was nearly killed in the Season 2 premiere by an assassin aiming for the President.)

During the meeting two of the representatives present a factual argument as to why Christians are being persecuted in China. Mary does to an extent, but her tone is derogatory and threatening. After the facts are read, Mary says that the scores of millions of Christians will not stand idly by when religious freedom is threatened. This is Sam’s opening.

Sam: “Sure they will. Christians will stand idly by when religious freedom is threatened. They’re just not doing it this time.

Mary doesn’t have to ask. “This is about the play.”

Sam: “Guy rights a play called Apostle, where Jesus is gay and you protest. Fine. But when a guy threatens to blow up the theatre, you are nowhere to be found.”

Mary just says this: “That play was disgusting.”

Sam: “So you’re okay with freedom as long as its something you like to say. Don’t look now, but I think the playwright’s headed to China.”

The story moves on from this point, there are more important things afoot. I’ve heard this discussion and what it implies for over twenty years and I guess it’s only recently that the darker implications have hit home. It shouldn’t have; this kind of hypocrisy is something we are constantly made aware of, particularly when the left always accuses Republicans, or Fox News, or conservatives, or really anyone in general they don’t like, of this kind of hypocrisy. But over the last several months I have increasingly become aware of just how often the left and other minorities openly engage in this practice themselves. Perhaps the most recent, glaring example of it has come over the recent controversy when transgender influence Dylan Mulvaney made an Instagram post for Bud Light and the right reacted with fury.

I mention this because I have read so many articles in the past several months by the left arguing about the hypocrisy of the right-wings reaction and their threats towards Mulvaney. They have constantly arranged to engage in counter-protests against Budweiser for them not standing behind Mulvaney. That’s fine as far as it goes. But threats have been made against Anheuser-Busch factories ever since, including bomb threats. I have yet to hear a single mention of that from any column on the left.

Nor is this the only time where this has happened in the past month. Earlier in June when Target gave ad campaign for gay pride, the right protested and the attitude from the left was far similar: corporations deserve what they get and they moved for counter-protests towards Target for not standing up to hate. Just as with Budweiser, several Target locations have received bomb threats. Progressive columns have not mentioned this at all.

Silence against violence against corporations is bad enough but it becomes far worse when there’s a similar incident to a noted official. Progressives were all over the mysterious powder that Alvin Bragg, the New York DA who is currently prosecuting Donald Trump, received in the mail a few months back. Last month, several notable Republicans, including Trump and Clarence Thomas and several GOP elected officials, received similar powders sent to him. Funny how progressives, who never miss an opportunity to throw venom at those two men in particular, don’t seem interesting in revealing a death threat towards either of them, or indeed so many of these elected officials.

The most charitable explanation for this radio silence by the left for these threats of violence – especially from a group that has no problem reacting whenever there’s a mass shooting or a minority death in police custody -  is that because there is no evidence of anyone on their side being responsible, they don’t feel that they have to comment on it. It seems very hypocritical an organization that has no problem condemning right-wing violence at any opportunity, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt in this occasion.

The other explanation is a variation on the way that we hear in The West Wing about not condemning the bomb threat. “That play was disgusting.” Given the smugness in how so many on the left and of their coalition look down on anyone who disagrees with them or have a message contrary to theirs, they feel that these people or organizations deserve what they get.  They are reaping what they sow, so why should we even bother to offer thoughts and prayers for them? Besides, we’ve spent so much time and energy condemning every single action that they take, arguing that they might be victims of this would humanize them, which would disrupt the narrative we have spent so much time forming.

From the moment The West Wing debuted in 1999, it was predictably enough condemned by right-wing media and conservatives as being yet another example of Hollywood liberals promoting a leftist agenda. In fairness to the right, this critique had merit when President Bartlet began his reelection campaign. From the moment his opponent Florida Governor Robert Ritchie was described, Sorkin made no effort to conceal that he was the worst aspect of the Republican party and had many of the characters – particularly Toby Ziegler – argue that Bartlet should denounce both Ritchie and the people who might vote for him as a complete and utter moron.  They spent the next year essentially arguing that Democrats are smart and Republicans are morons, that anyone who even considers voting for a Republican is an idiot by proxy, and the campaign came to a climax with Bartlet humiliating Ritchie in the Presidential debate essentially by proven he was smarter than him and by implication if you voted for Ritchie, you were contemptible. (I imagine Democrats today would essentially call that fanfic for every election campaign going forward.)

Progressives and leftists over the years, while they do not directly condemn the show or the writing,  they overall mock Sorkin’s idealism and spirit for compromise as essentially fake.  I don’t deny that much of his writing on the series (and both his subsequent TV shows) do argue for a mythic ideal that can not exist in reality.  But I still prefer his idealism to so much of the dialogue of the left these days who think that tribalism trumps compromise and governing and prefers talking at people and calling them morons then to listening to them. Just today on a progressive website, I read an article just today of someone who posted front page ads in a Florida newspaper on two separate occasions blasting Republicans as pretty much close to traitors – and was disappointed that he only received praise and no hate mail or death threats.  This is not an attitude that is conducive for governing or the health of the republic. Indeed, it’s pretty close to the idea that conservatives are more interested in ‘owning the libs’ than governing.

Coincidentally, this exact argument comes when Josie shows up in the White House and tells her brother: “I won’t shrink for a fight.” Leo counters, not positively: “No. You look for them.” When Josie points out Leo is similar, Leo argues: “I don’t look for fights. Enough of them look for me.” In that sentence Sorkin has summed up perfectly the difference between so many progressives and Democrats, elected or otherwise.

In conclusion, I return to Shibboleth and think about everything that unfolded there if it were viewed from the leftist mindset. If this were to happen, they would insist the Chinese be granted asylum but leave out the fact that they were Christian fleeing religious persecution. (I can just see some ‘good hearted’ leftist saying to some ‘good people’ “Seriously, don’t we have enough home-grown Christians?”) When Josh announces this he tells the President: “China’s gonna say send them back. (The Christians will) say that they have to stay. INS is going to say the law’s the law.  Then Josh and Sam spend the next two days talking to representatives from China and the INS. Josh tells Bartlet that they broke international law by fleeing the country and accordingly should be sent back to their country of origin. The INS also tells them that they have to be serious about enforcing customs and immigration laws.

Progressives and those who argue unabashedly for immigration would not hear any of these nuances. Their attitude, ironically, would be that of Mary Marsh when Josh tells her that the INS judge decides to grant asylum. “The INS judge will do what the President wants, and if he doesn’t grant asylum, he’s going to wish he had.” To many on the left, there is no room for nuance or shades of gray.

I will not reveal how this is resolved if you haven’t seen the episode, save to say that while Bartlet does the right thing for everybody, he does so without pissing off China and without granting asylum. I have little doubt that this solution would make some on the left angry. In their mind, the only reasonable thing to do would be on Thanksgiving day for Bartlet to have all of the Chinese refugees on the White House lawn, the President essentially giving his final monologue, which he does in private to the full White House press corps  and have one of these  refugees (who for the record are starving) actually pardon the turkey.  For them, it’s not about the right thing being done, it’s doing it for the right reason and in a public forum. That Bartlet and everyone on his staff have been struggling with this issue for three days, trying to come up with the nuances and find out an equitable solution – and came up with one – is irrelevant.

The West Wing resonates to me in several ways because it believes in equality, not in the abstract but in reality. That means that every aspect of the Constitution applies to everyone, that Republicans are entitled to a point of view even if you completely disagree with it, and that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not something that applies only to your tribe. In other words to those who will advocate that Dylan Mulvaney’s safety is important, but the people who work for Budweiser deserve what they get, well, to paraphrase Aaron Sorkin: “Don’t look now, but I think Dylan Mulvaney’s moving to China.”